Hearing secret harmonies (26 page)

‘Never mind.’

The three of us set off together.

‘I’m glad I wasn’t at school here.’

Stourwater was one of the educational establishments Fiona had never sampled. The new role of young married woman seemed to come with complete ease to her. There could be no doubt that she liked exceptional types. Gwinnett’s attraction to Fiona was less easy to classify. A faint train of thought was perceptible so far as Pamela Widmerpool was concerned, though Fiona had neither Pamelas looks, nor force of character. The impact of Pamela might even have jolted Gwinnett into an entirely different emotional channel, his former inhibitions cured once and for all. That was not impossible.

‘Sir Magnus Donners once took some of his guests down to the so-called dungeons, but I’m not sure I can find them.’

Gwinnett pricked up his ears.

‘The dungeons? Let’s see them. I’d like to look over the dungeons.’

Fiona agreed.

‘Me, too. Do have a try to find them.’

They did not cease to hold hands, while several rooms and passages were traversed. Structural alterations had taken place in the course of adapting the Castle to the needs of a school. The head of the staircase leading to these lower regions, where the alleged dungeons were on view – knowledgable people said they were merely storerooms – could not be found. Several doors were locked. Then a low door, a postern, brought us out into a small courtyard, a side of the Castle unenclosed by moat. Here school outbuildings had been added. Beyond this open space lay playing fields, a wooden pavilion, some seats. Further off were the trees of the park. Gwinnett surveyed the courtyard.

‘This near building might have been a brewhouse. The brickwork looks Tudor.’

Fiona turned towards the fields.

‘At least I’ll never have to play hockey again.’

‘Did you hate games?’

‘I used to long to die, playing hockey on winter afternoons.’

Gwinnett gave up examining the supposed brewhouse. We moved towards the open.

‘In the ball-courts of the Aztecs a game was played of which scarcely anything is known, except that the captain of the winning side is believed to have been made a human sacrifice.’

Gwinnett said that rather pedantically.

‘The rule would certainly add to the excitement of a cup-tie or test match.’

‘Another feature was that, when a goal was scored – a very rare event – all the clothes and jewellery of the spectators were forfeit to the players.’

‘Less good. An incitement to rowdyism.’

‘I think they both sound excellent rules,’ said Fiona. ‘Nothing I’d have liked better than to execute the captain, and I never watched any games, if I could help it, so they wouldn’t have got my gear.’

Gwinnett would have liked to remain serious, but gave way to her mood. Marriage seemed already to have loosened up both of them. Further discussion of Aztec sport was brought to an end by something happening on the far side of the hockey-field, which distracted attention. Beyond the field a path led through the park. Along this path, some way off, a party of persons was slowly running. They might well have been the Aztec team, doubling up to play a sacrificial contest. There were about a dozen of them approaching, mostly dressed in blue, trotting in a leisurely way, knees high, across the park. Fiona, naturally enough, grasped at once the identity of this straggling body. I don’t know how soon Gwinnett also took that in. Probably at once too. The strange thing was that, before comprehending the meaning of what was taking place, I thought for a second of childhood, of Dr Trelawney and his young disciples.

‘Look! Look!’

Fiona was displaying great excitement. By that time I, too, had understood the scene.

‘It’s them all right.’

Fiona tried to discern something.

‘Is
he
there?’

She spoke with a certain apprehension. Obviously she meant Murtlock. No one answered her. Gwinnett seemed interested. He watched the runners. Fiona examined them intently too.

‘No – he’s not there. I’m sure he’s not there. But I can see Barnabas.’

There were at least a dozen of them, perhaps more. Not all wore the robes or tunic of the cult, some almost in rags. Both sexes were represented, the average age appeared to be early twenties. The only two older persons were much older. One of them, Widmerpool, was leading the pack. He wore the blue robe. The other elderly man lacked a robe. Dressed in a red sweater and trousers, greybearded, dishevelled, incredibly filthy in appearance even from far-off, this one was by a long way the last of the runners. Fiona was thrilled.

‘He’s not there. Let’s talk to them. Let’s talk to Barnabas.’ ‘OK.’

Gwinnett said that quite warmly, as if he too would enjoy the encounter.

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Not at all.’

She turned towards the runners, and shouted.

‘Barnabas! Barnabas!’

At the sound of Fiona’s voice, the pace set by Widmerpool became even more sluggish, some of the party slowing up to the extent of not running at all. These last stood staring in our direction, as if we, rather than they, were the odd figures on the landscape. That may well have seemed so to them. Fiona cried out again.

‘Come and talk to us, Barnabas.’

Widmerpool was the last to stop running. He had to walk back some little way to where the rest had drawn up. He was evidently in charge. If the run were to be interrupted, he might have been supposed the correct individual to be hailed by Fiona. I was not sure what her attitude towards him had been when herself a member of the cult. No doubt he was a figure to be taken very much into account, but, if only from his age, having no such grip as Murtlock on her imagination. It was unlikely she would ever have made our presence known had Murtlock been sighted among the runners. Now, behaving like a girl seeing old schoolfriends again, some of the pleasure coming from their being still at a school from which she had herself escaped, Fiona began to walk across the field to meet them. Gwinnett followed. It was not clear whether he was indifferent to the reunion, wanting only to humour his bride, or still felt curiosity as what this encounter might bring forth. The runners, Henderson foremost among them, strayed across the grass towards us, the elderly man with the tangled beard remaining well to the rear.

‘How are you, Barnabas?’

Henderson looked as if a far more ascetic life had been imposed on him since crayfishing days. His face was pale and thinner. He had removed the moustache, and taken to wire spectacles. The sight of Fiona greatly cheered him. She began to explain what was happening at Stourwater.

‘Sebastian’s wedding reception is going on here this afternoon. Chuck told me he was going to come to it. Chuck knows Clare Akworth.’

I did not grasp the significance of that, nor hear Henderson’s answer. The sight of Widmerpool at close quarters absorbed all my attention. Although I knew he had by now been more or less entangled with the cult for the best part of two years, was accustomed to take part in its esoteric rites, in all respects identified himself with this new mode of life – as The Devil’s Fingers showed – the spectacle of him wearing a blue robe was nevertheless a startling one. Flavia Wisebite had been justified in the account she had given, so far as that went. The image immediately brought to mind was one not thought of for years; the picture, reproduced in colour, that used to hang in the flat Widmerpool shared with his mother in his early London days. It had been called
The Omnipresent
. Three blue-robed figures respectively knelt, stood with bowed head, gazed heavenward with extended hands, all poised on the brink of a precipice. It was a long time ago. I may have remembered the scene incorrectly. Nevertheless it was these figures Widmerpool conjured up, as he advanced towards me.

‘Nicholas?’

When he spoke, within a second, that impression was altered. What had momentarily given him something never achieved before, a kind of suitability, almost dignity, dwindled to no more than a man gone into the garden wearing a blue dressing-gown. It was largely the clothes that had outraged Flavia Wisebite, but, in the end, it was not this kind of bathrobe that made the strong impression – any more than with Murtlock – it was the man himself. Widmerpool looked ill, desperate, worn out. The extreme debility of his appearance brought one up short. The low neckband of the garment he wore revealed a scar that ran from somewhere below the neck to the upper part of one cheek; possibly the gash inflicted on the night of The Devil’s Fingers ceremony. In this physical state it was surprising that he was able to run at all, even at the slow pace he himself had been setting. No doubt the determination always shown to go through with anything he took up, carry on to the furthest limit of his capacity, was as painfully exercised in the activities to which he had latterly given himself, as in any undertakings of earlier life.

‘Hullo.’

His manner was as changed as his costume. He sounded altogether bemused. He stood there limply, haunted in expression, glancing from time to time at Fiona and Gwinnett, though not speaking to either. So far as could be seen, Fiona was introducing her husband to these former associates; Henderson, the young ones, all crowding round. There was a hum of chatter. The filthy grey-beard hung about in the background. Widmerpool seemed to make an effort to pull himself together.

‘Why are you wearing a tailcoat?’

‘A wedding is taking place. I’m one of the guests.’

‘A wedding’s taking place in Stourwater?’

‘Yes.’

‘But – but the Chief’s dead, isn’t he?’

Sir Magnus Donners, in days when Widmerpool worked for him, had always been referred to by subordinates as the Chief. Widmerpool put the question in an uncertain puzzled voice that seemed to indicate loss of memory more damaging than reasonably to be associated with a man of his age.

‘He died some little while ago – close on twenty years.’

‘Of course he did, of course. Extraordinary that I should have doubted for a moment that the Chief had passed over. A mistaken term escaped me too. I shall do penance for that. At our age transmutations take place all the time. Yes, yes.’

Widmerpool gazed round again. Perhaps more to steady himself than because he had not already recognized Gwinnett, he suddenly held up a hand in Murtlock’s benedictional manner.

‘It is Professor Gwinnett – to use an absurd prefix?’

‘It is, Lord Widmerpool.’

Gwinnett smiled faintly, without the least friendliness. That was hardly surprising in the circumstances.

‘Not Lord, not Lord – Ken, Ken.’

Gwinnett withdrew his smile.

‘You came to see us about a year ago?’

‘Yes.’

Fiona turned from the group with which she had been talking. Perhaps she wanted to impress on Widmerpool her ownership of Gwinnett; anyway now absolute separation from the cult, whatever her taste for still hobnobbing with its members.

‘Russell and I have just got married, Ken.’

‘Married?’

The way Widmerpool spoke the word was hard to define. It might have been horror; it might, on the other hand, have aroused in his mind some infinitely complicated chain of ideas as to what Fiona meant by using such a term. Fiona may also have wished to shock by stating that she had taken so conventional a step. Acceptance of the fact that she gave the word its normal face value seemed to sink into Widmerpool’s head only slowly. Not unnaturally, in the light of what he had just been told about a wedding taking place in the Castle, he mistook the implications.

‘You’ve just been married at Stourwater, Fiona?’

He looked more astounded than ever. Fiona laughed derisively. I think she intended to make fun of him, now that she was free from any possible reprisals. Even Gwinnett smiled at the question.

‘No, it’s my brother’s wedding.’

Taking Gwinnett’s arm, Fiona turned back to her younger acquaintances. Widmerpool reverted to the subject of Sir Magnus Donners. It seemed to trouble him.

‘Extraordinary I should not only have forgotten about Donners, but used that erroneous formula, there being no death, only transition, blending, synthesis, mutation – just as there are no marriages, except mystic marriages. Marriages that transcend the boundaries of awareness, the un-manifest solutions of Harmony, galvanized by meditation and appropriate rites, the source of all Power – rather than the lethal manufacture of tensions as constructed in these very surroundings today.’

Widmerpool’s observations on such matters were suddenly interrupted by a burst of singing. The notes, thin and quavering, possessed something of Flavia Wisebite’s conversational tones, mysteriously transmuted to music, weird, eerie, not at all unpleasant all the same. They came from the other elderly man, the bearded one, who had still moved no nearer to join the rest of the group.

‘Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow:
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.’

Widmerpool started violently. It was as if someone had touched him with a red-hot iron. Then he recovered himself, was about to go on talking.